“You don’t have to say that, mom.”
“No, I do. I believed my magick was the poison, but now—looking at what a beautiful, intelligent, powerful woman you have become—I can see how wrong I was. I should have embraced the magick and trusted in the God and Goddess that they would see us through.”
“There was no way you could have known.”
“I know, but I’m responsible for each and every life I helped her take by refusing to act.”
I reached for her face and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m here now, okay?” I said, “I forgive you, mom… and I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Never in the history of my life had I ever leapt into someone’s arms more fully. There was nothing quite like a mother’s embrace. It had a power so primal and soothing it could quell even the most disquieted of hearts, and after the things she had said both of my hearts needed quieting. Acheris had killed my father, driven my mother into hiding, and gone on a murderous rampage to find the baby she saw in her prophecies; the child of the witch and the wolf that would be marked by the demon.
The one with the power to end her, or end everything else.
With every passing moment I could feel my heart lightening. It was as if someone had opened a door and let a sliver of light into an otherwise dark room. Frank had been right. I had to confront my inner demons before I could confront the outer one. The truth about my father had been one demon I was aware of; visiting his grave and saying goodbye, I now knew, was another.
Chapter Twenty
Judas.
Damien ran the tap, let a pool of water fill between his cupped hands, and washed his face. Then, without giving it too much thought, he opened the back door leading out of the kitchen and stepped into the afternoon. It was warm out, thanks no doubt to his magick. He realized none of them had eaten yet, but hunger didn’t bother him much. Besides, he didn’t want to think about Amber right now, or about Aaron, or Frank, or even Jackal.
His secret conversation with Frank in the back of the van had been less than pleasant, but they had at least gotten somewhere. “A plan”, Frank had called it, and Damien trusted him since Frank, he thought, was probably the only person who really understood what Damien was going through. He was happy Frank had agreed to keep the particulars of his dream a secret. This was the kind of thing the group didn’t want to hear, not after all they had already been through… and all that was still to come.
Before he knew it, Damien had walked all the way to the barn, which sat opposite the house. He hadn’t actively thought of coming here, but the size of it must have drawn him to the building. Maybe there were horses inside? At the very least, it was a place he could go to be alone. Being around people all the time was exhausting, and Damien hadn’t seen a lot of quiet time in the last couple of weeks. This was a good place to—
“Lost in thought?”
Damien jumped at the sound of Jackal’s voice and turned on his heel. “Fuck,” he said, “Shouldn’t creep up on a witch like that.”
“Sorry. I’m light on my feet.” Her red hair drank in the sun, and in the light it looked more like freshly spilled blood than it did in the dark. Damien saw himself reflected on her aviators.
“It’s fine. I just needed to get out of there.”
“Your ex’s mom’s place. I get it.”
“How did you—”
“I could see it on you. Smell it on you. Plus, Aaron told me.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t worry. It isn’t like we talk about you or anything. You just came up. You’re a big question mark, you know that?”
Damien tried the barn door. It swung open in a wide, creaking arc. Inside, all was browns and golds and sunlight, but no horses. There were hay bales and a tractor, though, and plenty of gardening tools. Why he thought there would be horses in a barn he didn’t know, but then he had never so much as visited a farm before now.
“Why am I a question mark?” he asked, stepping inside.
“Because you’re difficult to read.”
“You’re not the first person to have said that.”
“Am I the first werewolf?”
“You and Aaron are the only werewolves I’ve ever met.”
“Trust you don’t meet more.”
Damien paused, turned around, and cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
She approached, invaded his personal space, and took a deep whiff of his collar. “Because,” she said, her breath on his neck, “Werewolves don’t trust people they can’t get a clear smell from.”
“Is that a threat?”
Jackal backed up a step, her lips curled into a smile. “I don’t need to threaten you. I’m not being cocky or anything, but that wound on your chest tells me you wouldn’t be much of a match in a fight.”
“Witches don’t fight with fists.”
“True. But do you think you’d be able to get a spell off before I put my claws in your neck?”
“Is this what you came here to do? Gloat about how you can kick my ass?”
“No, but I can tell you’re pissed at me now and it’s good to be able to get something out of you. Tells me what I need to know about you.”
Clever. Damien turned around again and circled the tractor, but remained silent. Jackal swung around on the other side and they met behind the big, red vehicle.
“Why are you hiding it?” she asked.
“Hiding what?”
“The scar on your chest.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Of course you don’t, but I don’t take no for an answer.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’m not disappointed, I’m intrigued. Even humans wear their scars with pride. I think I know why you’re hiding it, but I want to hear it from you.”
“Why is it so important that I tell you?”
“Because nobody likes a little bitch who doesn’t deal with their issues, Damien.”
Damien’s breathing had quickened. His chest started to vibrate and he felt the power calling at the edge of his senses, building, like water behind a dam about to burst. “I’m nobody’s bitch,” he said.
“Then show it to me.”
“What?”
“I want to see it. Right now. Take off your shirt and show me the scar.”
He swallowed hard and considered, for a moment, what angle Jackal was playing. What did she want from him? Did she want him to be vulnerable with her? Was she looking for a weakness she could exploit? Or did she just want to see the scar on his chest? She could already smell it—the clots and scabs, the pink flesh, the mangled tissue. Why would she not be curious?
Heat rose from his chest into his neck and cheeks. Damien slid his jacket off his shoulders and let it fall to the ground. With great effort, he then lifted his shirt up and over his head. The cold came all at once, biting at the still relatively raw flesh on his chest and he winced, but his refusal to show vulnerability in front of a werewolf kept him from letting the pain manifest on his face.
Jackal took a step toward him, then another, and then her fingers came. Warm, soft, delicate, they traced the longest, deepest line of the scar. The one, which hadn’t healed nearly like the others had, running from his collar to just above the rib-cage. There were four marks on his chest in total, each cut done simultaneously by the same clawed hand.
Amber’s hand.
“This,” Jackal said, once she had removed her aviators to inspect it more closely, “Is bad-fucking-ass.”
It wasn’t. The damage to his skin had been horrendous. The wound was sore when the temperature dropped, itchy every other minute of the day, and sensitive to even the slightest touch. It required constant care and attention with creams, bandages, and even magick. And the scar it would leave was going to be the ugliest, biggest scar he could have ever imagined he would receive. The worst part, though, was that—
“She gave this to you, didn’t she?” Jackal asked.
Damien nod
ded, but remained silent.
Her fingers hadn’t broken contact with his skin; she was like an artist searching for imperfections on the canvas of his chest. “And you haven’t told her.”
“No. And I won’t.”
“Because you still love her, and it would hurt her to learn she had nearly killed you.”
“That’s a reach, isn’t it?”
Jackal placed her entire palm on Damien’s chest and pressed herself against him. He flinched now, wincing from the pain, but he clenched his jaw and held it. “Is it?” she asked. “I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at her. I don’t have to be able to read you to notice your eyes go where she goes, follow what she does.”
“What is it you want from me?”
She cupped his cheek with her other hand and slid her fingers into his hair, around the back of his neck. Slowly, Jackal reached for his lower lip with her teeth and nipped at it. Damien’s heart exploded into a sprinting pace, beating so hard the veins in his neck began to show. Jackal could hear it. Of course she could. He didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of hiding his excitement, the rush, the thrill, so he didn’t.
“I like scars, Damien,” she said. “The ones you can see, and the ones you can’t. I can show you mine too, if you want.”
The warmth radiating out of her seemed to make the cold around them irrelevant. She trailed the line of his jugular with her lips, reaching his collar and continuing until the delightfully euphoric moment where her warm tongue found pink, damaged skin.
Damien’s entire body began to tremble. “I can’t,” he said.
“How much do you love her?” she asked, alternating between kissing and licking the wound on his chest.
“I’d die for her.”
“Kill for her?” She removed her jacket and let it fall to the floor, exposing her tattoo-covered arms.
“If I had to, yes.”
“Even if she’s fucking someone else every night?”
Damien shoved Jackal and she stumbled, but she didn’t fall. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, his heart thundering in his head.
“It means what I said. Amber is with Aaron, and that relationship isn’t going anywhere. You’re out of the running, Damien, so you need to make sure that whatever you do you’re doing it because you love her enough to not care who she’s with.”
“I don’t care who she’s with.”
“That’s not what I see.”
He shoved her against a wooden beam, hand against her throat. “What do you see when you look at me?”
“I see a guy who loves a woman he can’t have. A guy who’s going to let his analytical brain get the better of him and make a mistake he’ll regret for the rest of his life.”
“I already made a mistake I’ll regret for the rest of my life. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Sure I do. You’re the kind of guy who makes mistakes because you over think things, and because you’re afraid to say how you really feel about something. The scar on your chest is sexy but that quality isn’t, and that’s why she’ll never love you back.”
He could see his own face reflected in her clear blue eyes, eyes the color of summer—or winter. But he saw something else, too: he saw the weakness she was talking about. Like a specter hanging over his shoulder, a gaunt mockery of himself with its twiggy hands around Damien’s neck.
His heart was pounding, thumping, hammering. In his head, his chest, and his palms he could feel it, each beat harder and louder than the last; a rising crescendo with the power to take away his sense of sound, his vision, and his ability to make reasonable choices. There she was, pressed between his naked chest and a wooden beam, her skin exposed and smelling like the most delicious, ripest fruit in the garden. And he was thinking. He was thinking about Amber, about magick, and about the consequences of his actions until now—and the consequences of whatever action he was about to take.
Jackal’s hand came up in a flash and connected with his cheek. Stars danced before his eyes and Damien went reeling. He blinked and stared at her. “Pussy,” she said, and she slipped past him to grab her jacket from the floor.
Something inside of him clicked, then. Damien grabbed her arm, and pushed her back against the wooden beam. Just as her mouth opened to protest, he plunged his lips against it and swallowed her breath, feeling for her tongue with his own. He cupped her face with his hands and she reached for the hem of her shirt, lifting it over her head and tossing it aside.
The pain was irrelevant. Adrenaline had all but shut his mind up; all he wanted was the feel of her skin against his. Jackal fumbled with his belt as he tasted her full lips, her slender neck, and the tops of her perky breasts. He pulled the cups of her bra down and freed them, then he took a nipple into his mouth and bit it. Jackal cried out, a pleasurable moan filled the barn, and then his belt came loose.
Damien let his jeans fall to the floor. He unbuttoned hers, whipped her around, and pulled them down from behind. Entering her caused every inch of his being cry out in joy and in bliss. He had been with no other women besides Amber and Natalie—the witch of honey and cinnamon from San Francisco—but Amber was freshest in his mind. He remembered how soft her skin was, how her curves fit his body perfectly, and realized that Jackal reminded him of her.
When he looked down at the curve of her back, at her blood red hair, and the curve of her backside, he noticed the scar on his chest. It was impossible to miss. A painful reminder of what Amber had done to him in a fit of uncontrollable rage. Yet when he closed his eyes to rid himself of the view, all he could see was Amber.
The heart wants what the heart wants.
Chapter Twenty One
We pulled up to the cemetery after having eaten something at my mom’s place. They all came with me except for my mom, who didn’t think it was a good idea to be around me at the cemetery. Just in case. I was fine with that. She had already given me so much, told me so much. All I had to do was look at her face to see the physical and emotional toll today had taken on her. The last thing I wanted was for her to have to deal with any more of my drama.
More like trauma.
“Up here,” Frank said.
My mom had given us the cemetery’s address and explained, using landmarks, where my dad’s grave was. The graveyard was a sprawling thing, with hills and trees and all manner of monuments to the deceased. Statues of cherubs and gargoyles watched over the graves, while tall, crooked sycamores provided shade from the sun. My mom had described one sycamore in particular at the crest of a hill. It was supposed to always be green and full, no matter the time of year. Next to it, she said, I would find my father’s resting place.
When I walked up to Frank, I saw it.
The headstone was a simple thing made of black marble that took in more light than it reflected. Gold lettering scrawled into it read “Here lies Ethan Lee. A great, humble man.”
The tears came slowly, but they came. I knelt on the soil and stared at the headstone, feeling the smooth marble beneath my fingertips. It was cool and soft, and time hadn’t worn the lettering too badly. In fact, the headstone was in great condition considering it was almost three decades old. Then I noticed the vase with some withering flowers in it placed by the side. Had my mom left those? If so, when? Judging by the color of the flowers, it couldn’t have been more than a few days ago.
“When I die,” Jackal said, “I want to be cremated.”
“Me too,” Frank said, “To the elements shall I return.”
Aaron knelt beside me and put his arm around my shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “I think so. This is just a lot to process.”
“I know. Take your time, okay? We’re here.” He stood, asked the group to give me some space, and backed off down the hill with them to leave me alone with my father.
A gentle breeze picked my hair up and tugged at it from behind. I wrestled some of the strands out of my eyes and stared at the headstone again, then at the ground.
Before I knew it, my fingers were pressing into the earth—just the tips—and I was reaching for his essence with my mind, stretching my senses out into the Nether to find a glimpse, a hint of him. Graveyards were quiet places for both the living and the dead. The dead came here to rest, so when I saw that the Nether was as still as the material world I wasn’t exactly surprised.
Disappointed, but not surprised.
“Hi,” I said.
I wasn’t expecting a response, but I paused anyway and wiped a tear from my lower eyelid to stop it from escaping.
“I never got to meet you,” I said, “And that’s unfair. You never got to meet me either, though. I’m not sure which is more tragic. I think you’d have liked me. I know you’d have liked me. You would have understood me… probably more than most others did. I think we both got short-changed here.”
Another pause. I glanced over my shoulder and saw my friends at the foot of the hill standing like an awkward bunch of goth kids. None of them seemed to know what to do with themselves. A smile crept across my lips.
“I don’t have much to say,” I said to the headstone, “I only came here because I wanted to thank you for saving my mom’s life. I’ve forgiven her for not telling me about you. I can’t blame her. I don’t think I’ll be able to ever stop wondering what life would have been like if you had been my dad. I know you probably don’t want me to do that, but there’s little you can do to stop me, isn’t there? So, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, just know that I... I know the truth. About you. About mom. And that I’m going to destroy the bitch that put you here.”
Another breeze crept up the hill. It had a nasty bite so I turned my face away, but then I heard something else floating on the back of the wind; a humming? My eyes went up, searching and scanning. My skin prickled, but I couldn’t find the source of it. Then I remembered the cellar, remembered the feeling, the humming, and remembered Collette.
I stood. “Collette?” I said. Aaron heard. “Collette, is that you?”
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